


All Foucault, No Knickers

by chaosmanor



Category: Dogma (1999)
Genre: Bible Quotes, Biblical References, Blasphemy, Literary References & Allusions, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Minor Violence, Philosophy, Wine, Wine snobbery, mild ickiness, too much post-structuralism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-15
Updated: 2017-12-15
Packaged: 2019-02-15 02:25:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13021278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaosmanor/pseuds/chaosmanor
Summary: Bartleby and Loki are celebrity wine-tasters.Loki has read too much French post-structuralism for anyone's well-being.





	All Foucault, No Knickers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ChokolatteJedi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChokolatteJedi/gifts).



> If Loki is speaking, please assume he is (mis)quoting Derrida and Foucault.  
> Both Loki and Bartleby also extensively riff on Deuteronomy and Song of Solomon.

The Madison Vintners and Vignerons put on a good show. Bartleby approved of the climate-controlled tent, the gentle waft of music from the jazz trio on the sloping lawn, and the zeros on the check that the organizers had just handed Loki.

"Barry, Larry, so glad you could attend our little soiree," the godless woman with the ridiculous hat said. "We're so pleased you could come along and judge for us today and put on your little show."

"Delighted," Bartleby said, shaking godless-woman's hand. "We hope you have some treasures for us to taste."

Loki nodded and shook her hand too, all superficial politeness. "This is a lovely property."

"Oh yes, one of our generous members lends us their homestead for this event. Would you like a tour?"

Loki's brow was creasing, and he was glowering at the woman. Bartleby could sense an impending incident.

"We like to keep to ourselves before judging," Bartleby said. "For appearances."

"Oh, of course," godless said. "Of course."

Bartleby grabbed hold of Loki's elbow and towed him muttering out of the tent and on to the lawn. The jazz trio played something popular and smooth from within the past fifty years.

"The sin, did you feel the sin?" Loki asked, wiping his hand on his jacket repeatedly.

"Yes," Bartleby said reassuringly. "I know, I know."

"If I had my sword… If I had a weapon…"

Bartleby moved his arm around Loki's shoulder, making sure they were turned away from the tent. Loki had his sommelier knife in his hand, and had levered the foil-cutting blade out.

"Remember the syrah from the Abbey of New Calirvaux?" Bartleby asked. "Remember what it tasted like?"

Loki's fingers curled around his sommelier knife. "Like the fragrance of Lebanon."

"Yeah," Bartleby said. "That's what you put in your tasting notes."

"As clean as the waters of Elim," Loki continued.

"And I said it had been purified with hyssop," Bartleby said.

Loki closed his sommelier knife and pocketed it.

"Yeah, I remember that wine."

Bartleby hugged Loki's shoulders and let his arm drop. "Okay?'

"Better now. But if she has touched any of the wine, I'm going to give it the lowest scores I can."

 

* * *

The tasting was a horizontal flight, with wines from the same vintage but different vineyards.

Bartleby was seated at a trestle table covered in white linen, rows of partially filled wine glasses in front of him. The spittoon was brass and tastefully covered with a pristine white cloth.

Madison Vintners and Vigerons were all class.

Loki was seated across the tent from Bartleby, pen in hand, ready to start his tasting notes.

Bartleby lifted his hand and waved over one of the invigilators.

"That woman there, in the hat?"

"Yes, Mr. Barry?'

"She's wearing a pungent perfume. Could you have her removed from the tent, please?"

No one involved in wine tasting would ever wear cologne or perfume because it interfered with the wine bouquet. But also, no one would ever argue with Larry and Barry, because one crushingly bitter weekly column from the two of them could take down a winery.

Loki might not have his sword anymore, but he had a pen and a keyboard, and he could still lay waste when needed.

The hat woman was bustled out of the tent, and Loki's face softened at Bartleby for a moment, over the rows and rows of glasses.

Now, for the wine.

Bartleby lifted the first glass, a delicately pale white wine, and checked the temperature of the glass with his fingertips. Eight degrees Celsius, just right.

Swirl. Translucent shimmer of sunshine, sliding gently down the glass. Sniff. Notes of oranges and cinnamon. Sip. Shivers of flavor across Bartleby's tongue, starting with soft fruits and building through deeper resins, ending on solid tannins.

Bartleby spat, rinsed his mouth with water and spat again, then patted his lips dry on the napkin beside his pen. He jotted down numbers on the scorecard, then added his tasting notes: _flirty and fun, like watching a Debbie Reynolds movie in a darkened room with someone's hand on your knee._

His tasting card filled with scribbled notes as he worked through the rows of glasses, from rieslings and sauvignons, through chenins and chardonnays, on through a very seductive tempranillo to merlots and shirazes. The final glasses of naughty late-picked frontignacs and delirious ports had Bartleby sighing with pleasure.

He checked his notes for legibility and consistency. The notes would be published in the Madison Vintners and Vignerons newsletter, so he wanted to take care with them.

_Luscious and full-bodied, reminiscent of an orchard of pomegranates._

_Frisky and playful, like being tickled by the right person._

_Fresh and delightful, with hints of the ripe armpits of a man who has been working hard in the vineyard all day._

_Lovely, lovely chenin blanc. A whisper of satin petticoat shivering over silk stockings._

_If this late-picked frontignac were a person, it would bend you over its knee and spank you._

_I would fuck this port if anatomically possible._

 

* * *

Across the tent, Loki was making his own notes:

_Delicate balance in this riesling, forever imperceptible._

_Startling chenin blanc that only pretends to pretend to be a good wine._

_This shiraz is manifesting the force of the grapes and harvest, their struggle lives in the complex palate and long finish._

_This cabernet sauvignon is a journey to the sea down a thousand rivers._

_Smashingly good port, requiring absolute solitude for true appreciation._

When Loki was finished, he checked across at Bartleby, who was still scribbling intently, and played with his sommelier knife. Bartleby wrote absolute nonsense in his tasting notes, and no one ever seemed to notice. Loki sometimes felt the burden of being the sensible one.

The judge sitting beside Loki leaned over and said, "Um, Mr Larry? Could you stop stabbing the table, please?"

Loki harrumphed, but put away his knife and smoothed over the rips in the tablecloth.

* * *

Bartleby took care of the hand shaking and smiling, and Loki stood behind him, sub-vocalizing in Enochian.

"Dirty," Loki hissed. "Filthy, dirty, sinful humans. Bound to the ground, drowning in their own power, unable to see the mechanisms of control."

Bartleby shook the last hand offered to him, smiling far too keenly at the young man offering it for Loki's liking, then turned to tuck an arm through Loki's elbow and walk him out into the afternoon sunshine.

"Firstly," Bartleby said, "you need to stop using Enochian and stick to Aramaic, because one day we're going to run into a chapter of magicians who speak Enochian, and be in a whole world of trouble."

Loki made a dismissive noise at the suggestion of magicians.

"Secondly, you have been reading far too much French post-structuralism. Take a break, read something a touch less intense perhaps?"

Loki opened his mouth to explain to Bartleby why Bartleby was wrong, wrong, wrong, but godless-hat-woman walked up and started talking first.

"Larry! Barry!" the woman called. "If the two of you are ready, we'd like to have your special performance now, before the scores are announced and prizes given."

 

The special performance, as the woman called it, was a live celebrity wine tasting from 'Larry and Barry'. Loki wasn't sure why people were willing to pay Bartleby and himself so much money to stand on a stage and talk about wines, but it was an effortless way to pay the living expenses on their house on Redemption Blvd. A big check, for the two of them to spit out wine in public and then ramble about it? Sure, Loki was up for that.

Loki and Bartleby had microphones clipped to their jackets and the transmitters tucked into their pockets. Bartleby and the technician exchanged a mutually unfulfilling grope, while Loki tried not to think about killing.

Bartleby's odd desires were inevitably going to lead to yet another trousers-down incident that had to be explained away by a ghastly story about a chemical spill or a boat propeller accident. The damage Bartleby did was outrageous. One brief trip to Wisconsin by Ernest Hemingway in the 1920s, and generations of schoolchildren were now compelled to read _Fiesta_. One misplaced authorial fumble with Bartleby had indirectly given employment to an entire generation of psychoanalysts.

Bartleby nudged Loki, and Loki said, "A monologue of reason about madness," out loud, and his words were carried over the sound system.

Maybe Bartleby was right? Maybe Loki should ease up on the 20th century French philosophers?

One of the other wine judges, a pleasant man who Loki didn't particularly hate, introduced Loki and Bartleby.

"Distinguished guests, Ladies and Gentleman, and fellow vintner scoundrels, for your entertainment and education this afternoon, we are lucky enough to have two of our favorite Wisconsin wine tasters with us, and they are going to give us a live blind tasting. Put your hands together to welcome our celebrity wine tasters, Larry and Barry Angelo!"

Loki and Bartleby stepped up on to the small stage at the front of the tasting tent, Loki waving and Bartleby saying, "Thank you, thank you, we are so happy to be here on this lovely homestead. Let's see what delightful surprises are waiting for us in this flight?"

The pleasant man lifted a cloth off a row of empty wine glasses, and Loki said, "Ooh, sparkling wines."

"Good guess," Bartleby said, as Pleasant Man poured two glasses of the first wine, from a bottle wrapped in cloth.

Loki picked up a white napkin to hold the wine against, to look at the color, viscosity and aeration, then held the glass under his nose to sniff the wine.

"Gentlemen?" Pleasant Man asked.

"Fresh color, pale shades of lemon. Bouquet is the choice first fruits of your soil," Bartleby said.

Some members of the audience tittered. Loki wasn't sure why, but he was pleased that at least some of the people there knew their Deuteronomy when they heard it.

Loki nodded. "Looks like the first blush of sunrise on Mount Amana, with notes of balsam and myrrh."

They both sipped, and Loki watched Bartleby's cheeks as he tasted. Then they spat into the spittoon in well-practiced unison. Water, spit again, pat dry.

"Gentlemen?" Pleasant Man asked.

Bartleby pondered, then said, "Needed more balance. The palate delivered like an adult entertainment performer on roller blades."

Loki raised an eyebrow at Bartleby, while the audience roared with laughter.

"I would say it was more of pseudoscience than a real science, in the form of a brut bubbly."

Less laughter at that, apart from someone at the back of the tent who had lost control and was shrieking with glee.

Thank God someone else had read something of substance.

Pleasant Gentleman unwrapped the bottle to reveal the variety and vintner, to applause.

Vintners paid to have their wine tasted publicly by Loki and Bartleby, and this amused Loki. The chances of Bartleby saying something stupid about the wine were so high that the entry cost couldn't possibly be worthwhile.

The next wine was a less dry and abrasive bubbly with deeper color.

Bartleby said, "Clear color, notes of saffron, calamus and cinnamon in the bouquet."

Loki nodded. "Cypresses and nards."

Puzzled tittering from the crowd, who presumably knew Deuteronomy better than Song of Solomon. Had none of them masturbated to Song of Solomon as desperate adolescents? What was the world coming to?

Taste, spit, rinse, spit.

"A wine of more subtle, more subdued sufferings," Loki said.

Bartleby nodded. "I can taste each grape that died for our moment of fleeting, anorgasmic pleasure."

Sometimes, in moments like these when Loki was sure that Bartleby understood, Loki needed to kiss him.

Bartleby met him halfway, brush of lips, sharing of the wine, and the crowd applauded, though Loki wasn't sure what for.

Pleasant Man unwrapped another bottle and held it up for the crowd to applaud.

The next wine was a sparkling red, and Loki knew to be suspicious. Was it really of a red variety? Or was it a white with coloring added?

Look, sniff, taste, spit.

Sparkling merlot, very cunning. Loki could definitely taste the fuller, denser flavors of the red grapes.

"The blood of grapes," Loki said.

"But fortunately without the rams and goats," Bartleby said, to more laughter.

What was it with this crowd and Deuteronomy? The third sermon had really over-emphasized repentance, in Loki's opinion.

Next wine, a beguilingly charming white, with a delicate bouquet and a long, sensuous finish to the palate. Loki wished this wine had been in the official tasting flight earlier, so he could have given numerical scores as well.

"Like an apple tree among the trees of the forest," Loki said.

Bartleby blushed. He fucking blushed. Loki adored him, occasionally.

"This is a wine I would soar for," Bartleby said. "A wine for angels."

The crowd shouted their appreciation. Bartleby and Loki smiled at each other, and tasted and spat their way through the remaining wine in their glasses.

"Wine of the day, gentlemen?" Pleasant Man asked, and Bartleby and Loki both nodded.

The bottle was unwrapped with much ceremony, and the vintner was obviously in the tent, by the shouting that was happening in the front row.

The final wine was poured.

Loki looked and sniffed. The color was too sharp, like the wine had been clarified with something other than isinglass, something synthetic. And the bouquet was confusing, with notes of honey over the top of something heavy and creamy. It was unpleasant.

"Nothing is innocent," Loki said.

Bartleby sniffed and frowned. "Like perfume that can't cover sin."

The taste was a mess, sweet with odd tannins that shouldn't be there, licorice and candy and mould. Loki was glad to spit and rinse.

"Empty words and a hollow jingle," Loki said.

"This wine has gone commando," Bartleby agreed.

"All Foucault and no knickers," Loki said.

Pleasant Man held up a bottle of gut rot special, and the crowd hooted and shouted with glee.

* * *

Loki and Bartleby made their way back to their car and driver, provided by the organizers.

"That last wine was rubbish," Bartleby said.

"Good thing it really was the joke wine, and not something made by the homestead owners," Loki said.

In the back of the car, Bartleby lifted up the wrapped bottle from the organizers that had been their thank you gift.

"Let's find out what we got this time?" Loki said, and Bartleby peeled back the gift wrap.

It was the penultimate wine they'd tasted, the wine of the day, the wine for angels.

"Let's go home, drink it, and spend the evening making out on the couch?" Bartleby suggested, grinning at Loki.

"Wanna taste my delicious fruit?" Loki asked, and their driver made a choking noise.

"Are you going to start reading something different?" Bartleby asked.

"What about transcendentalism?" Loki asked, and Bartleby nodded.

"It will be a change of pace, at least."

END

**Author's Note:**

> 1) My beta challenged me to write a fic with this title for Yuletide. I'm so glad I matched on Dogma, which made the challenge so much easier! The title is a misheard version of the aphorism 'all furcoat, no knickers'. This version of it works too. 
> 
> 2) My low Anglican passing aquaintance with the bible in no way prepared me for writing this fic. My rusty Arts degree did not prepare me for this much Derrida and Foucault. All errors are mine. So Many Errors. I'm sorry. 
> 
> 3) To anyone who knows anything about wine and wine-tasting? Apologies for just making this stuff up.


End file.
